Arts & Activities - Page 12

FORUM thoughts to share Boost Creativity and Innovation by Nan E. Hathaway reativity, innovation, differentiation . words so fre- 21st-century learners might consider the following: quently heard in professional development meet- • If the teacher chooses the medium, the student ings, district pep talks and school improvement plans, chooses the subject or vice versa. characterize next practice—teaching that pushes beyond • Facilitate genuinely open-ended projects; those for research-proven best practice toward new, unprece- which the outcome cannot be predicted. dented horizons for excellence and innovation. • Embrace opportunities for students to learn from misIncreasingly, we are asked to takes: Don’t work out the problems also consider next practice and ahead of time for them in an attempt 21st-century learning skills when to produce “no fail” projects. designing art experiences and • Devise ways students can developing curricula—skills that revisit materials, methods and focus on innovation, creativity, flexideas to gain mastery. ibility and collaboration, among • Withhold “exemplars,” which others (see complete list by visitcan encourage imitation and hining: www.p21.org/documents/P21_ der the development of original arts_map_final.pdf). ideas and approaches. Save these Practical avenues for deliverto make connections with artists ing next practice and 21st-century and art history after students skills can be elusive for teachers engage in art making. already burdened with budget con• Permitself-initiatedexploration. straints and increasing class size. • Allow students the option of It can be challenging to bridge the working alone or with a peer(s) of gap between theory and practice their choice. Authentic collaboraand to implement curriculum that tive work can be uniquely motiaddresses innovation and creativvating and rich in interdisciplinity, district directives and schoolar y learning. wide learning initiatives. • Offerflexibledeadlines. Educators may instead revert • Providestudentsanopportunity to outdated methods in an effort to for “incubation” by alerting them at “cover” material quickly and abanleast one class ahead about what “True expression” Griffin Cunningham, grade 7: don pie-in-the-sky dreams of fosthe next project will entail. This When you lock your personality inside for a long time, it tering initiative and self-direction: gets restless. When you finally let it out, it is able to be gives them an opportunity for creits true form and flies! Freed, it is full of joy and can be ative preparation not possible when there just isn’t time. To meet contemporary learning spread everywhere, making others happy and maybe have asked to begin a project immeditheir true personality come out also. goals for next practice, however, ately after it is assigned. With time teachers need to shift responsibilto consider possibilities, they are ity to students who, in turn, need to assume more control better able to create more personal, meaningful art work. of their own learning. The goal, after all, is to produce • Model artistic behavior: find time, in and outside the life-long learners, not life-long pupils. To accomplish this, classroom, to make art of your own. students need experience becoming problem finders, not In an era of escalating standardization, it is more just problem solvers. important than ever for art educators to provide meaningArt teachers who seek to develop “next practice” and ful counter-balance and champion creative possibility. n promote creativity, innovation and intrinsic motivation for Nan E. Hathaway is a middle-school ar t teacher in Vermont. She is a member of Teaching for Artistic BehavGo to artsandactivities.com and click on this button for links to the resource mentioned in this article. ior, Inc. (TAB) and authors studio-learning.blogspot.com. C 12 n o v e m b e r 2 0 1 3 • 81 y e a r s x www.ar tsandactivities.com